Question

What is the fraction 36/80 expressed in lowest terms?

Answer 1

36/80 in simplest form:

First, we can start off by finding the greatest common factor (GCF) of both the numerator (36) and the denominator (80). To do this, we have to list out the factors for each of the number, find the common ones and then the highest.

Factors of 36: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18, 36
Factors of 80: 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 16, 20, 40, 80

Looking through the factors of both the numerator and denominator, we need to find the common ones that appear in both set of factors. The common factors are 1, 2, and 4. But, we need to find the greatest common factor. Basically, what is the highest number out of the common factors? The GCF is 4.

Second, our last step is to divide the numerator (36) and the denominator (80) by the GCF we recently found which was 4.

$36 \div 4 = 9 \\ 80 \div 4 = 20$

Let's collect our new numerator and denominator and rewrite our fraction in its simplest form.
$\frac{9}{20}$

Answer in fraction form: $\fbox {9/20}$
Answer in decimal form: $\fbox {0.45}$

Answer 2

The best thing to do is to divide by 2 until this cannot happen any further.
36/2= 18
18/2= 9
80/4= 20
Therefore, 36/80 expressed in the lowest terms is 9/20
Hope this helps :)